Better than Wayne's
by Novelist N Training
Summary: What are you talking about? Coulson didn't die! *so spoilers, I guess* reposted from the comic-verse


**What Are You Talking About?**

Agent Phil Coulson opened his eyes and moaned. It felt like someone had shoved one million needles into his skin and had set his forehead on fire. Everything seemed blurry and the very thought of sitting up was dizzying. He decided not to move but to rather observe what little he could in his position.

The first thing he noticed was that his suit was wrinkled. Not that he was shallow, but Phil Coulson's pride relied on his appearance. He was the guy at work who was known for having the best ties. And the fact that there were stray wrinkles throughout his suit made him frown.

The second thing he noticed was that his chest felt as if someone had shoved a bomb in his chest cavity and it had previously detonated. The skin around his chest felt raw and wet, soaked through with what he assumed was blood on his clothes. Every time his heart beat he was overtaken with pain.

The third thing that he noticed was that there was a dripping sound far away from him that echoed.

And the fourth thing that Coulson noticed was that he wasn't able to notice as much as he usually could. The guy could walk into a meeting and within the first ten minutes he could think of at least fifteen ways to kill the board. But that was with lighting, and wherever he was (what he mentally called "God Knows Where) was lacking and form of this. It was also cold and damp, the air almost frigid. Phil wanted to shiver and give in to the cold but knew that he couldn't because if he fell asleep again he wasn't sure if he would wake up. He settled with taking enough deep breaths so that he could successfully sit up. He pushed his luck though when he tried to stand as well. As he did this a dizzy spell hit him and he fumbled, his arm instinctively going to the wall for support. The fabric of his suit sleeve suddenly felt wet and he was sliding down to the ground again. Hesitantly he patted the wall and felt that it was moist. He brought his fingers to his lips and delicately sucked on them to determine what the liquid was only to find that it was just

"Water." Well, that was good. He could always lick the walls if the situation got desperate. He noticed that alone not only did his voice ring wherever he was but also sounded rusted, as if it hadn't been used in decades. His mind mentally made the connection that he was in a cave with seemingly no one. Much more slowly Coulson pulled himself to his feet again, prepared. He planted himself in a position so that he wouldn't fall and took another observing glance.

But something felt off. Not only could he feel it in the air but it was a sensation that cut deep into his bones. His ability to know when something was wrong was part of the reason that S. H. I. E. L. D. had hired him in the first place.

Wait. S.H. I. E. L. D. Why wasn't he at S. H. I. E. L. D.? He didn't have a day off. He never took days off anyway. So why wasn't he sitting in his office (agents as good at their jobs as Coulson didn't have to sit in cubicles) fixing the latest problem that Tony Stark had created?

And speaking of which, where was the eccentric billionaire? Or his Jolly Green Giant friend, or even the Asgardian? And where was Captain America, for God's sake?

Quietly Phil took deep breaths to calm himself. He couldn't risk being compromised. Scanning the area he realized that he was alone in the dark, injured, and unsure of where he was other than in a cave. Which could only mean one thing.

He had been kidnapped again.

Great.

To understand Phil Coulson's annoyance rather than terror at the thought of being kidnapped one would have to know a bit of background information.

The first time Phil Coulson was kidnapped it had not been within his first year of working at S. H. I. E. L. D., or even the first month. It was within Coulson's first WEEK of being on the job. There had been no interrogating or torture of any sort, but the experience was enough to emotionally scar him and make him bring a Taser everywhere he went just in case.

The second time Phil Coulson had been kidnapped it was part of one of Fury's plans to trick the enemy into thinking that they had the upper hand. Fury said that the plan was "simple and basic," so naturally the rookie agent volunteered. After that he vowed to always read the file his boss gave him no matter how long it was.

The third time Phil Coulson was kidnapped he hadn't even seen in coming. He was just leaving the headquarters when he felt a hand with a rag clamp over his mouth. Being Coulson, he could tell that it was Chloroform. There was no threat in this since part of his S. H. I. E. L. D. training was to become immune to the effects of Chloroform. But the attacker apparently figured this out because the next thing he knew Phil was waking up on a cement floor in an abandoned warehouse, shackled to a wall and dripping blood onto the floor. No one knew what had happened to him while he was there, but when he came back there was a scar on his chin and blood on his hands.

And the FOURTH time he was kidnapped, it didn't even last five minutes before S. H. I. E. L. D. got word that the kidnappers were dead and Phil needed a ride.

But now Coulson was agitated. He didn't have his trusty Taser in his pocket, its absence feeling as if he was missing an arm. His back-up knives that he kept in his shoes (knife throwing was another Carny thing that Barton knew and unusually wanted to teach Phil) weren't there either. He sighed and started to walk.

He didn't know where he was going, but there was a small speck deeper in God Knows Where that looked a bit like light. He stumbled, a very not Coulson-like thing to do. But pain shot up his legs with every step. It was all he could do not to curl up in a ball on the ground and drift to sleep. But he was a S. H. I. E. L. D. agent, and that's not what they were trained to do. Carefully he dragged his way closer and closer to the light until he could almost touch it. At its height the glow was almost engulfing him. When he took another step and walked out of the light, he stopped and blinked.

He was in a lab. As in, a real S. H. I. E. L. D. lab. The mass of the room was huge. There were metal sheets covering the cave walls with wires weaving in and out every which way. A computer sat in front of a wall that was entirely taken up by a monitor. Some Stark-looking technology sat at the foot of the monitor as well. Coulson saw a giant table in the middle of the room, with one leather chair and a file at one end of the table and another leather chair at the other end. Coulson heard something from behind him and whirled around to see Nick Fury standing there. The man raised an eyebrow.

"Coulson. Didn't expect you up so quickly." He looked at the lab, unimpressed. "How do you like it?" Coulson held back a sigh of relief at the fact that his boss was there.

"Very retro sir. I'm sure it tops even Wayne's." Phil startled when his boss suddenly put a hand to his forehead and frowned.

"Fever's still there. Must have been hell walking with those," he said, gesturing to the blood on Coulson's shirt. The hand was gone now, instead shoving the file that had been on the table into Phil's hands. Narrowing his eyes the agent opened the file and gasped.

The first page was taken up entirely with a picture of him with the words "deceased" stamped across it with official red lettering. He flipped through the rest of the thick file. All of the information was about him: past missions, reports, paperwork, personal data and only things that S. H. I. E. L. D. would know. He stared at the picture for quite some time before shoving it in Nick Fury's face.

"What is this?" he demanded. His boss simply looked at him.

"What is what, agent?" Phil jabbed a finger at his picture.

"This! What is- what is this?" His voice was shaking, which was something he wasn't proud of. But his control was being consumed by the fear gnawing at his insides. Mentally he tried to calm himself down, but to no avail. Fury seemed to grasp what he was trying to say.

"Ah. That's your file Coulson. I was hoping that you would know what a file looks like at this point." Phil tried not to let his anger show as he threw the file down on the table.

"Sir, what is the meaning of this? Why does my chest feel like it exploded? Why and I running a fever? Where are we? WHAT'S GOING ON?" Silence was his answer.

"Tell me dammit!" His boss sighed in what seemed like a motion of surrender, something Phil Coulson had never, ever seen him do. His finally met the agent's two.

"Your chest feels like it exploded because Loki shoved his magic stick through it." Coulson's memory came rushing back to him and he remembered going after Loki because Thor was in danger and everyone else was too busy or scared to help him. The feeling of his chest ripping open was still imprinted on his mind.

"You are currently running a fever because your injury became infected a few nights ago." He took a step towards Coulson. Phil looked at Fury, confused.

"A few nights ago? How long have I been here?"

"You've been slipping in and out of consciousness for the past several days now. We are currently in one of S. H. I. E. L. D.'s hideaways for when a situation becomes desperate." He took one last step so that the two men were nose to nose.

"And what's going on is that everyone thinks you're dead." Coulson felt like the room was spinning. He groped for the chair and sat down heavily.

"W- what are you saying?" Nick gave him a look that was the closest to pity that Phil had ever seen on him.

"What I'm saying is when Loki stabbed you your heart stopped beating for two whole minutes. We had declared you dead when out of nowhere you sat up like a goddamn zombie and asked us where the Avengers were. We patched you up and moved you to the closest hideaway, here, but apparently you sleepwalk and ended up over there." He pointed to the darkness of the cave. Coulson was reeling.

"why does everyone think I'm dead?" he asked quietly.

"We are going to be playing this by ear until we are absolutely sure that the threat of that punk ass alien Loki is gone. Until then we will be going on as if you are not alive." Coulson blinked.

"Did… Did we win?" Nick gave him a smirk.

"We won, agent." Coulson grinned.

"Well, that's good news." He thought for a second. "I- I came back?" And it was at that Nick Fury gave his best agent the smallest possible smile with a clap on the shoulder.

"Like I told you too. That's the way you obey an order." The smile disappeared. "Don't do that again unless you're gonna come back." Coulson smiled at his boss.

"I will always come back, sir." Fury nodded and gestured to the giant cave.

"There's a bed under the table you can use. This is where you'll be staying until I give you the word, understood?" Coulson nodded. The boss turned on his heel to go but paused at the last second and looked over his shoulder.

"Before I forget, these are yours." He tossed a plastic bag behind him without looking back before disappearing into the darkness. Coulson looked down and saw they were his Captain America trading cards splattered in what looked like fake blood from a bad horror film.

"This is a vintage set, you know!" he screamed to no one. He sighed deeply and looked back at the cards. His anger fizzled however when he saw that they were sighed by the hero himself. The words Steve Rogers were scrawled across the surface of every card. A smile spread across his face.

"You've done good Coulson." he could have sworn he heard Fury say. But with no one to verify this he just shook his head and looked at the stack of paper that had somehow appeared on the table.

"Of course," he stated wryly. And with a sigh he got to work.


End file.
